Automatic door opening/closing apparatus and refrigerator having the same

Abstract

Disclosed herein are an automatic door opening/closing apparatus to automatically open or close a door without applying any manual force to the door, and a refrigerator having the same. The automatic door opening/closing apparatus devised to automatically open or close a sliding door that is mounted, in a drawer manner, to a refrigerator body, includes a drive device coupled to the sliding door to automatically open or close the sliding door with respect to the refrigerator body, an input part to receive an user input and to operate the drive device based on the user input, a sensing part to sense an open or closed state of the sliding door, and a controller to operate the drive device based on signals from the input part and signals from the sensing part.

Description

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION[0001]This application claims the benefit of Korean Patent Application No. 2009-0083056, filed on Sep. 3, 2009 in the Korean Intellectual Property Office, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference.BACKGROUND[0002]1. Field[0003]Embodiments of the present invention relate to an automatic door opening / closing apparatus to automatically open or close a drawer type door, and a refrigerator having the same.[0004]2. Description of the Related Art[0005]Generally, home electronics, such as, e.g., refrigerators, have doors to open or close the interior of a body.[0006]The doors are classified into rotary type doors and drawer type doors. Especially, a drawer type door is integrally provided with a storage basket, so that the storage basket moves forward out of a body as the door is opened, allowing a user to easily remove items received in the storage basket.[0007]If the above-described drawer type door and storage basket have a large si...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0036]In accordance with a further aspect of an embodiment of the present invention, a refrigerator includes a refrigerator body, a refrigerating compartment and a freezing compartment vertically divided in the refrigerator body, a drawer type door to open or close the freezing compartment, a pair of sliding devices provided at the drawer type door, a connecting rod unit to connect the pair of sliding devices to each other, to prevent unbalanced opening/closing operat

Problems solved by technology

If the above-described drawer type door and storage basket have a large size, the user may need to exert considerable force to open or close the door.

In particular, if a handle of the drawer type door is located higher or lower than the user's s

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